Pepperdog
Adult Guinea Pig
Yesterday something weird must have been in the air as both silver and tyrian and lupin were extra grumpy and unusually the underdog in the pens were testing their dominance on the top dog in the pen (so to speak as they are guinea pigs).
Silver had a pop at crystal over food in the veg bowl, normally he is very quiet and takes to running and hiding at any opportunity especially as I was in the room, it was very unusual for him to be so brazen and confident like this, let alone pick a fight with the boss pig. She backed down after a short nose off and left him to the whole bowl, the other girls had already gone to the bottom bit of the pen to give him space.
Then I look round to the boys to find tyrian chasing lupin round and trying to hump lupin. Apart from the occassional sneeky quickie, lupin is the humper of tyrian, but tyrian does clean lupins eyes often so I would consider their relationship to be fairly equal and levelish status dominance wise as neither are that interested in being bossy (not like the girls, much more laid back). There were nose offs, teeth chattering from lupin and I was a little concerned that the girls in the room may have upset the pair - but why now, they have been there since sept and none of the girls are on heat. I watch them for half an hour ready to step in if need be, none of them are eating and things are a little tense in the normally happy laid back pen but the behaviours exhibited were
chasing - for short bursts
chattering - the normal volume I hear from lupin as a slight annoyance rather than angry tone
yawning - from lupin when tyrian is the other end of the pen, I take this as a way to disperse his own tension on tyrians advances as this is not directed at anyone
bum raising and wiggling from tyrian - not for long and more like he is trying his luck than actually meaning it.
humping - if tyrian managed to get close enough to lupin he mounted him - over the side, mostly as lupin has a harder time kicking him off, but lupin would remove tyrian shortly after he got jumped on.
and finally the whole way through they were chatting to each other, not an annoyance noise, the same squeeking and wheeking I get from both of them (they do talk to each other a lot and me).
As this seemed quite mild dominance displays I chucked in lots of things to amuse themselves with as I had to go to work and decided that nothing escalated enough to concern me, after all the introduction of silver to the girls the first time was much worse than I had witnessed and no blood had been drawn, infact both boys were going out of their way to have time outs so I got the OH to give me reports on them when he got home later, once I got home late last night I checked on both of them to find them sleeping near each other happily.
This morning both pens were back to normal, crystal is back in charge of the herd, infact she told me all about the previous days events in our daily chat. The boys were eating next to each other, tyrian back to cleaning lupins eyes for him and much more relaxed and chilled out, infact they were next to each other pretty much the whole time I was in there. I once again put in lots of amusements for both groups as it could be seasonal changes making them test their dominance, the fact that two boars were doing exactly the same flexing of their manlyness makes me believe its a seasonal spat.
Oh and also in my daily chat with crystal I told her that the boys were also acting out like silver had and that they had not touched their veg at all that day, I had to throw it away. She was most shocked and said she would have eaten her veg up before bossing everyone else around and they were silly boys
she is a very wise pig
Silver had a pop at crystal over food in the veg bowl, normally he is very quiet and takes to running and hiding at any opportunity especially as I was in the room, it was very unusual for him to be so brazen and confident like this, let alone pick a fight with the boss pig. She backed down after a short nose off and left him to the whole bowl, the other girls had already gone to the bottom bit of the pen to give him space.
Then I look round to the boys to find tyrian chasing lupin round and trying to hump lupin. Apart from the occassional sneeky quickie, lupin is the humper of tyrian, but tyrian does clean lupins eyes often so I would consider their relationship to be fairly equal and levelish status dominance wise as neither are that interested in being bossy (not like the girls, much more laid back). There were nose offs, teeth chattering from lupin and I was a little concerned that the girls in the room may have upset the pair - but why now, they have been there since sept and none of the girls are on heat. I watch them for half an hour ready to step in if need be, none of them are eating and things are a little tense in the normally happy laid back pen but the behaviours exhibited were
chasing - for short bursts
chattering - the normal volume I hear from lupin as a slight annoyance rather than angry tone
yawning - from lupin when tyrian is the other end of the pen, I take this as a way to disperse his own tension on tyrians advances as this is not directed at anyone
bum raising and wiggling from tyrian - not for long and more like he is trying his luck than actually meaning it.
humping - if tyrian managed to get close enough to lupin he mounted him - over the side, mostly as lupin has a harder time kicking him off, but lupin would remove tyrian shortly after he got jumped on.
and finally the whole way through they were chatting to each other, not an annoyance noise, the same squeeking and wheeking I get from both of them (they do talk to each other a lot and me).
As this seemed quite mild dominance displays I chucked in lots of things to amuse themselves with as I had to go to work and decided that nothing escalated enough to concern me, after all the introduction of silver to the girls the first time was much worse than I had witnessed and no blood had been drawn, infact both boys were going out of their way to have time outs so I got the OH to give me reports on them when he got home later, once I got home late last night I checked on both of them to find them sleeping near each other happily.
This morning both pens were back to normal, crystal is back in charge of the herd, infact she told me all about the previous days events in our daily chat. The boys were eating next to each other, tyrian back to cleaning lupins eyes for him and much more relaxed and chilled out, infact they were next to each other pretty much the whole time I was in there. I once again put in lots of amusements for both groups as it could be seasonal changes making them test their dominance, the fact that two boars were doing exactly the same flexing of their manlyness makes me believe its a seasonal spat.
Oh and also in my daily chat with crystal I told her that the boys were also acting out like silver had and that they had not touched their veg at all that day, I had to throw it away. She was most shocked and said she would have eaten her veg up before bossing everyone else around and they were silly boys
she is a very wise pig